After Hours

Gratefully she allowed him the gesture. She suspected that if she’d managed to get down there, she would never have been able to get back up without assistance. Surreptitiously rubbing one aching temple with her fingertips, she wondered how quickly she’d be able to make her escape.

“Have you taken anything for that headache?” Rhys asked when she’d slipped her feet into her practical pumps.

“Yes. I helped myself to a couple of aspirin from your medicine cabinet.”

“They should start working soon. You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten something.”

Her stomach turned over. “I’m not hungry.”

“Sure you are. You just don’t know it yet.” Taking her arm, he pulled her toward the doorway. “I’ll make us some breakfast.”

“No, really, Rhys. I couldn’t eat a thing.”

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“I—uh—” She tried to remember. “I had breakfast yesterday. Half a bagel and some orange juice.”

He snorted his disgust. “No wonder those drinks took you out so easily last night. Why the hell didn’t you eat lunch? Or dinner?”

“At noon I was getting everything ready for your return to the office, and you and I worked together through dinner,” she retorted defensively. “When’s the last time you ate?”

He paused at the foot of the stairs, thinking. “I had breakfast yesterday,” he admitted reluctantly. “But it was a bigger breakfast than yours.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s much better,” she drawled sarcastically.

He smiled, then laughed softly and shook his head. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we? Come on, Boston, crawl into the bathroom, and I’ll make us breakfast. I promise you won’t be sick if you eat a little—from my cooking or your hangover. Trust me.”

Trust him? How could she not after last night? He’d rescued her from certain humiliation, resisted when she’d begged him to make love to her. She told herself that it didn’t really matter why he had resisted, but some tiny, intensely feminine part of her hoped he’d been trying to be noble. She’d really hate to think that he hadn’t even been tempted.

She almost moaned in dismay as the thought crystallized in her mind. Honestly, Angie, must you continue to make a fool of yourself over this man? she demanded of herself in sheer exasperation, sitting meekly at the kitchen table as Rhys had instructed her to do while he rummaged in the refrigerator.

He turned, caught her eyes and smiled, his hands filled with eggs. She wondered why she’d never noticed before that his gray eyes turned almost as silver as his hair when he smiled. And she wondered if he’d resist again if she threw caution and willpower to the wind and attacked him right there in his kitchen.

Putting both hands to her temples, she tried to convince herself that it was only her hangover prompting such crazy impulses. And then she tried to believe it.

7

RHYS HAD BEEN RIGHT. Angie wasn’t really going to be sick from eating. She only thought so for the first bite or two. After that, matters improved enough that she almost enjoyed the breakfast he’d prepared for her as she’d watched, fascinated.

“Feel better?” he asked when she’d finished half the meal.

“Yes, thank you. Though I still feel like a real idiot about last night,” she confessed without meeting his eyes. “I haven’t fallen for a stunt like that since high scho

ol,”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think those three will play a trick like that again,” he told her grimly.

She looked up quickly. “You didn’t—did you fire them?”

His expression was unreadable. “Did you want me to?”

“I—” She was furious with them, true, but to cause them to lose their jobs? “No, of course not.”

He nodded as if in approval of her decision. “I didn’t. But I told them what I thought of their actions and informed them that I expect my staff to be mature and professional at all corporate functions, business or social. I think they got my point.”

“They probably had to go change their pants,” Angie murmured, toying with a half slice of toast as she pictured the scene.

“Why, Ms. St. Clair, how crude.” A thread of laughter ran through his deep voice.